


"If you love them put your pride aside and apologize" is one of the worst advice I've ever seen in stories on how to deal with problems in Relationships

by SweetTsubaki



Series: Tim Drake Week 2017 [7]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, I was honestly annoyed that this was never touched upon in canon, M/M, actually working at solving a problem instead of ignoring it, if it hurt you it matters, while the advice isn't completely bad it becomes bad if not taken further
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-07 19:07:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11629995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetTsubaki/pseuds/SweetTsubaki
Summary: or How did Tim and Kon really solve their problems when Tim came back to Young Justice ?Tim Drake Week 2017 - Day 7 : Free Day





	"If you love them put your pride aside and apologize" is one of the worst advice I've ever seen in stories on how to deal with problems in Relationships

**Author's Note:**

> Happens after Young Justice #46  
> Especially after [this](http://imgur.com/a/QORjw)  
> obviously it's about the Our World at War arc, [this moment](http://imgur.com/a/ZnUtr) of YJ #38 play an important part of this.
> 
> As the title and summary say : "If you love them put your pride aside and apologize" is one of the worst advice I've ever seen in stories on how to deal with problems. It's, luckily, something Young Justice never did but they passed over this and it bothered me so here's a filler, that explains how Tim and Kon's friendship really started. Because I think this talk with Supergirl helped shape Kon so much and it especially helped in his friendship with Tim.

Kon couldn't help but feel a little anxious as he stood in front of Robin's door. Still he steeled his nerves and knocked. Hoping Robin -Tim, he had wanted to know the name of the closes person he had to a best friend for months but wasn't used to it yet- had somehow disappeared into a parallel universe or, more simply, gone back to Gotham without any of them noticing, so he wouldn't answer his door.  
His hope disappeared as the door opened revealing the former/new member of Young Justice in all his Robin glory, including the damn mask. But Kon was just happy to have the boy back and forced the remark back in his mind. It sadly reminded him on the reason for his fidgeting in front of Robin's -Tim's- door. Said Robin looked surprised to see Kon -and why wouldn't he?- but opened his door nonetheless:

"Hey Kon, do you want something?" He paused, seemingly remembering something and asked as he sat himself on his desk chair "Is it urgent ? Because it's pretty late I was going to go back to Gotham."

Kon recoiled a little but steeled himself again (he had quite a few jokes about him stealing Steel's ability to Steel himself).

"I'm not sure, but I really don't want it to wait another day. I'd rather have it be done and over with."

Tim -he got it right, finally!- stiffened slightly. "Look if you're having second thoughts about me coming back-"

"What? No dummy! I just kept moping around without you and Bart. It just didn't feel right without the two of you." Kon replied as he waved off Tim's comment like it was a personal offence. He paused then sighed and dropped on Tim's bed as looked at his feet -it's not like he could look the boy in the eyes anyway. "But it is linked to that." He took a deep breath. "The thing is, I get why you left but dude, you never even said goodbye. I mean you did to the others but I came back to Cassie spouting something about forgetting what she said before and I tried the apology I wanted to make to you on her -not that it was completely false, after all I should have listened to her but she still took it weirdly. You were already gone and I get that you felt like you had to leave but you didn't even try to talk things through with us."

Kon was almost breathless -or as breathless as he could be anyway- and everything was silent for a few minutes as Tim seemed to take it in before answering calmly.

"I'm sorry Kon I didn't know you were going to apologize, it's just that my Identity is linked to Batman's and I wasn't going to betray his trust no matter what. So you would have kept being frustrated and so would I and…I had a lot of stuff to deal with at that point and It just didn't seem to be worth the struggle. But now that you know my real name it's a moot point anyway"

"But it's not!" Kon yelled as he stood up, frowning at Tim. "The point is still there. You just said it yourself we weren't worth the struggle. I can get the girls, maybe, but Bart and I weren't worth the struggle. You didn't even reveal your name we just found out because of the situation. Would you have ever come back without it? Or if you had stayed would you have ever revealed your name without the Bedlam situation? Would you care enough to? Tim my apology was only about my behavior because I do cherish what we had but the truth is that because of this whole secret I.D thing what we had amounted to almost nothing.  
The only reason you're my best friend is because, everyone left me, I lost touch with my former team and I live in a lab and am mostly surrounded by adults so that Young Justice is the only place where I have real actual friends and Bart acts like a three years old most of the time, Cissie left, Cassie has a crush on me so she acts weirdly from time to time, Greta mostly has eyes for you but she also behaves like a kid who's around Bart's age, Lobo is annoying and Anita is mostly friends with Cassie even if she is great. You're my best friend by default because of that but from the little I knew about you when you were not being Condescending Leader I knew we could be friends but never really were. I was frustrated because no matter what you never opened up and you were distant and I get that it's your role as Robin but do you even understand the kind of frustration I, Bart, the rest of the team went through?  
I wanted to apologize for my behavior but not for my frustration. So no. It's not a moot point!"

If Kon was breathless before then now he didn't know what it was. He felt vulnerable in a way he had tried to avoid for months. Tim seemed speechless too and, while he was afraid he'd make Rob-, Tim leave again, he couldn't stand by and let it fester. He just wasn't made of that wood. He tried but he wanted to be friends with Tim and he knew they could be but for that they needed to really be on the same page. He hoped Tim understood that. But if he didn't Kon wouldn't be able to stand being in the same place and he already had to change his whole life and go live in Hicksville, he didn't want to have to deal with Tim leaving again or them just ignoring each other.  
Kon startled when he felt Tim sit beside him. He had almost forgotten they were in the same room. And now they were only a few inches apart which was surprising for Mr. "I'm the mini Night even if I definitely not as bad as my mentor". Tim took off his mask and looked at Kon while also trying to avoid complete eye contact and started fidgeting too. Holy Awkwardness Batman. Tim's eyes started looking all around the room as he started talking:

"Kon I'm sorry that's not what I meant. I just thought it was obvious. I wasn't here by obligation we created this team simply to have an excuse to hang out. It took me barely two weeks before I started asking Batman to tell you my identity. Showing you my face was almost like Christmas because of how relentless he and Nightwing are about not giving a hint about who we might be. I, I would have left before if I really didn't care enough to tell you my name. After the Olympics probably, or that thing with Doiby or when we ended up on New Genesis.  
But then there was… I wasn't ready to tell my name to Spoiler, I mean we went through some stuff that definitely brings people together but things became too serious too fast and we hadn't completely connected and, it's just, it was pretty complicated and then Batman revealed my identity to her simply because he was petty and didn't want to talk with one of the people I was living with but was worried because I had been trapped for a couple of days and they had no idea of my whereabouts. So I was having trust issues with him myself and then you compared me to him and said you didn't trust me and it was, just too much to deal with. I'm not…good at this stuff so I needed to remove myself a little from the situation in order to deal with it on my own before being able to face anyone. I'm sorry I'm not used to having so many people to deal with and I got overwhelmed. You're right we were never really friends and that's why it wasn't worth it for me. It wasn't about you and Bart it was about me having to cut my losses and I just didn't see any way this would end well and it just seemed simpler to cut ties then than after the tenth time we'd have accidentally killed each other because of our arguments. And I…I knew you wouldn't take it well and I just. I was a coward and took the easy way out, leaving with Bart when he left."

They were touching now, right thigh and knee against left thigh and knee, right shoulder to the elbow against left shoulder to the elbow. It was comforting, even if they were both awkward. Neither used to contact that didn't come from a girl (and what was up with that? Sure he really liked girls but he didn't actually have an issue with hugging guys, so why did he never do it? Not that it would be the case here. Tim would probably go back into his rabbit hole if he did one more move)

"Ok"

"Ok?" Tim looked up and turned his head back toward Kon. "What's Okay?"

"Well you know, Okay I get it, you're forgiven. Wait Am I forgiven?" Kon frowned. He had assumed he was, but maybe it made it worse, maybe-

"Of course, you are. We were both victims of the circumstances and we're both jerks. And you were right. We needed to talk, I'm glad we cleared that up now."

Kon couldn't help but beam at that. And with that simple talk, he and Tim had been more vulnerable to each other than they had been to anybody else in a while. With that they were really starting to build a friendship. And now he understood what Supergirl had told him. Apologizing wasn't about who was right or wrong, it was simply about opening communication. It's something he wished was explained on TV instead of simply using the "you love them so put your pride aside and apologize" logic. Because things didn't work like that. While putting your pride aside was important, ignoring that you considered something wrong or that something hurt you was more detrimental to the relationship (no matter what kind) than anything else. And Kon just wanted to have one relationship to go right in his life and if it was with the clearly emotionally wrecked boy with whom he had a strange connection.

So when Tim started to leave for Gotham, Kon went back to the Kent's farm and even if he had to live _there_ now. He couldn't help but be happy because this time he could really call Tim his friend, even his best friend and absolutely mean it.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it :)
> 
> That advice from YJ #38 is something that matters to me a lot because usually in fiction when someone gives the advice to apologize whether you're right or wrong it's to **finishing** an argument. However here Supergirl's advice while similar, proves to not be when she gives the alternative to Kon. Because it's not about finishing but **opening a dialogue**. It's something that always bothered me in other fictions because the person apologizing (whether the narrative considered they had actually been wronged or not) **were** hurt. And they're literally apologizing for being hurt. So this issue back when I first read it was a jewel.  
>  Also we've seen Conner use a similar technique at least twice on Tim (the only two times Tim did something stupid to him) so I'm pretty sure he took it to heart.
> 
> If you wanna talk [here's my writing tumblr](https://sweetwriting.tumblr.com/)


End file.
